I found Montalbano's twenty-fifth case, The Other End of the Line, to be one of his strongest. Yes, there's the element of humor, with the tech-leery Montalbano trying to deal with a GPS for the first time, and Catarella trying to take care of the victim's cat. Yes, there's the mouth-watering Sicilian food. Yes, there's Livia with her demands and arguments and Montalbano's intuition and dreams that always seem to lead him to the right path in his investigation. But there's more.

The Other End of the Line is firmly rooted in the crisis so many European countries have faced with thousands of refugees seeking asylum. Author Andrea Camilleri skillfully shows the logistics of dealing with frightened people almost every night and brings an even more human side to the situation with the plight of a young refugee girl.

The mystery is a tough one to solve. Montalbano has to deal with a member of his team trying to fit up a rival with the murder of the woman in the tailor's shop, and the victim herself is so secretive that it makes the investigation even harder.

This book's treatment of the refugee crisis makes it one of the strongest in this long-running series. We get to observe both Montalbano's heart and his considerable skills. I'm looking forward to his next case even though it means that I get closer to the end of one of my favorite series. ( )

This is a typically interesting and fun Inspector Montalbano mystery novel. Unfortunately, it is Camilleri's last. Inspector Montalbano is one of the great long-running characters in fiction history, both in the many books and in the long TV series shot in Sicily. ( )

El comisari Salvo Montalvano, amb els seus col·laboradors Fazio i Mimí Augello, i el telefonista Catarella, es troben immersos en unes nits estiuenques carregades de feina a causa del desembarcaments d'immigrants, que nit rere nit arriben a les costes sicilianes. Però si no en tenien prou es produeix l'assassinat d'una modista. De mica en mica es van trobant pistes però que fan difícil desvetllar qui ha estat l'assassí. Fins ben bé al final de la narració no sabrem el perquè d'aquesta mort i qui l'ha provocat.
Narració entretinguda i addictiva, i més després del viatge que acabem de fer a Sicília. Una de les darreres novel·les de Camilleri, al final del llibre agraeix a Valentina Alferj, la seva transcripció ja que en aquests moments ja s'havia quedat cec. ( )

The mystery is quite good but even better is the look at how Sicily was dealing with waves of migrants (or refugees) coming from northern Africa. ( )

Cuando Vigàta se llena de pateras, Salvo Montalbano se ve completamente desbordado de trabajo. Tras haber sobrevivido a las olas traicioneras, cientos de migrantes llegan hasta la costa en pésimas condiciones, sin medios ni garantías, por lo que ayudar se convierte en un deber para el comisario y sus hombres.

Como si ese apremiante desastre no bastara, Montalbano, acuciado por Livia ante la inminencia de las bodas de plata de unos amigos, se pone en manos de Elena, una bella modista que regenta la sastrería más afamada de Vigàta y con la que traba una complicidad inmediata. Pero cuando Elena aparece brutalmente asesinada, entre algodones libaneses y rollos de tela, el comisario, con la colaboración nada menos que del gato de la víctima, hará todo lo posible para desenmarañar el ovillo de tan horrendo crimen. ( )